Helping Haiti

Student Council will be collecting items for Haiti Health and Hygiene Kits through Monday, Feb. 1st.  Please bring items to room 111 and we will put the kits together and deliver them to the appropriate agencies.  The following items are needed:

The health kits will be dropped off at the Brentwood Christian Church and the hygiene kits will go to Convoy of Hope.  Please help by bringing any of these items during the next week.  Again, Monday, February 1st will be the last day before we need to send the kits to the above agencies.

GREEN TEAM

         A huge THANK YOU to all the students and parents who contributed items for our Christmas Basket.  The Green Team adopted a family of three this past holiday season and your kindness was overwhelming.  Thanks to all who helped make the holidays better for one local family.  And thank you again PTSA for the delicious meals and lovely gifts.

As we complete the first semester and start the second semester, the Green Team would like to remind 8^th grade students about our "no late work" policy.  In an effort to prepare students for high school classes, students should remember that no late work will be accepted.  Students are responsible for getting work they may have missed from being absent and getting completed work in on time. 

          Green Team teachers would like to remind students that although they have scheduled for high school, they need to focus on their studies now to avoid the "3^rd quarter slump".  Please keep up with homework assignments to achieve success this quarter.

          Academically, Ms. Adams's classes are studying Westward Expansion and Jacksonian Democracy.  Student Council will be participating in the Share-A-Heart campaign February 8^th - 12^th to benefit the Ronald McDonald House.  Hearts will be on sale during lunch for $1.00 each.

          Mr. Apperson's classes are getting into MAP mode.  Math students are continuing to practice their problem-solving skills as they practice working with fractions, percents, and decimal numbers.  Algebra students are working hard with linear inequalities and absolute value equations and are working on reviewing problems from past MAP tests.

Mrs. Oelschlaeger's students have completed EdminPerformance testing and started a short unit on the story Flowers for Algernon.  Parents should expect students to have worksheets to complete as homework since we will be reading most of the story in class.  Coming up will be a poetry unit before we enjoy the major Mark Twain and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer unit.

          Mrs. Walker's science classes are finishing their Chemistry unit.  Then students will move on to the Weather and Climate unit.  We will build a weather station to study weather conditions.  Mrs. Walker encourages students and parents to watch the Weather Channel or weather reports on the local news channels as much as possible as this will help them get a better understanding of forecasting the weather.

          Please remember to check our Green Team website by clicking on 8^th Grade Green Team from the main Pershing website page.

Mr. Baker's American History students are studying Marbury v. Madison and the Jefferson Administration.  Once they have completed this topic, they will be working on the Age of Jackson and Westward Expansion.  Mr. Baker has communicated to the students that the second semester will see an increase in philosophy and heavier emphasis on concepts and characteristics that will help them in high school, college, and life beyond.  

Students in Mr. Davis' science classes are just finishing a chapter on chemical bonding and the formation of compounds and will be starting a chapter on chemical reactions and balancing chemical equations.  Chemistry is a blast!!  This is typically a difficult chapter for many students and will require them to apply themselves to the material and keep up with assignments. 

Life Skills classes change at the semester break and many Screaming Eagles students are now also enrolled in that class.  We'll be studying the excellent book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Shawn Covey.  Most of the work that we do in this class is done in the room, although students will have a few overnight assignments.  The secrets to success in this class are to come to class and participate in a positive way.

In Mrs. Brown's Communication Arts classes, her students have been reviewing types of letter-writing formats.  This unit will be culminated with a letter-writing campaign where students will write letters to out-of-town friends and family members, authors, and local professionals in area businesses with hopes that he/she will receive a return letter.  We will then continue to review and practice the parts of speech, punctuation, and figures of speech throughout our next unit on Poetry. 

Mrs. Brown would like to welcome her new students to Strategic Reading.  Strategic Reading is a semester class that all eighth grade students will be taking sometime during this year.  It is designed to help all types of readers to become proficient in tackling a variety of text material.  We will begin this class by analyzing the areas of reading that interest the students most and have made the most impact on their lives.  Students are expected to have a free reading book for each Strategic Reading class.  We will visit the library during class every other week.  Exploring the different types of reading strategies will also be a priority for this class.  We will be practicing how to use the strategies in order to help with the comprehension of all types of text. 

Algebra students are rapidly completing Chapter 6 on Inequalities and will be starting Chapter 7 on Linear Systems soon. Math 8 students are completing a unit on Percents and will be moving on to a Data unit, followed by a Geometry unit.  The third quarter project that will be assigned soon is to create a math game to play in class to review concepts learned this year. This game will be due shortly before Spring Break.

Congratulations to students successfully completing the first semester of their eighth grade year. We encourage all students to stay up-to-date on assignments and get off to a good start for the third quarter!

R.E.A.D.

            R.E.A.D. classes are continuing to work on reading and writing! Please make sure your students are completing their five entries and book club assignments for reading weeks.

            The sixth graders are beginning a unit on strategic reading during reading weeks. During writing weeks, we will be starting to move toward working through the writing process more independently. The seventh and eighth graders have started a unit on strategies to help them read and understand non-fiction texts. They are also working on discovering details to add to their stories during writing weeks, and have made a lot of progress in their writing!

            If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call or e-mail me.

Christina Burt

523-2604

cjburt@spsmail.org

Congratulations to our 7th and 8th grade Boys Basketball teams!  7th grade won 2nd place in the city championship tournament and the 8th grade boys brought home the championship by beating Pleasant View Middle School. 

Way to go boys. Great job to both Coach Roebke and Coach Baker and their coaching staffs!